After July 1, the prices of the essential foods such as milk powder, curd, butter milk, unbranded natural honey, dairy spreads, cheese, spices, tea, wheat, rice, flour, and spices will come down as these products are placed in the lower tax bracket.

The long wait for Goods & Services Tax (GST) is about to get over. The feeling among retailers is akin to that of expectant parents - they have equal amount of expectations and trepidations about the newborn.

There were no major surprises, with essential commodities such as food grains exempted and essential daily-use commodities like sugar, tea, coffee and edible put under the lowest tax basket of 5 per cent.

Global reinsurers have been attracted by the potential of the Indian market, but if they are taxed at around 40 per cent, as most foreign entities are - way higher than reinsurers in Singapore or the UAE - they may well limit their investment in India as well as scale down operations in the future if the global economy takes a hit.

While replying to the seven-hour-long debate, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the GST will make commodities 'slightly cheaper'. However, the revised draft of the Central-GST bill suggests otherwise.

Indian equities have rallied 9 per cent so far this year and around 13 per cent from the demonetisation lows, in line with other global indices like MSCI Emerging Market index which has rallied 9.7 per cent so far this year and MSCI World index which registered 5.7 per cent rise in the period under consideration.

I&B minister Venkaiah Naidu highlighted steps taken by the ministry to retrieve space after disposal of old furniture, fixtures, electronic and electrical waste. He said the ministry had been successful in retrieving 60,624 square feet space after the special campaign was launched from September to November 2016.

The first Budget since demonetisation has been a careful exercise by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. It caters to the core constituency - farmers and lower income people - while not introducing anything that hurt industry.